Well, the hate bit anyway, I guess I can’t really speak for other Mages, but I don’t hate Locks.

Fear them a little yes, but hate them… Not even a little.

Of course the days of the Burning Crusade are long gone, and while we may still compete for raid spots, we do so more as equals these day, we may even be in a superior position… Just.

Saresa, Syrana, Nibuca and Hydra just to name a few are Locks that I not only respect, but have come to love. Not in the “you have gained my respect through fear” kind of love, rather the I need to know more about your sub-set of the Mage class kind of respect.

When I see a Destro lock, I think poor Lock. You are nothing but a Fire Mage that took a wrong turn at some point in the past, the offers of the demons were too good to resist. Why die countless times, needlessly, when you can get a demonic duo to take the hits for you?

Just look at that starting pet. An Imp… Just like a Gnome Fire Mage, without the naked good looks.

I sometimes ponder whether the shadow bolts are just a failed experiment to merge the Fire and Frost tree… Red plus Blue = Purple.

They took a shortcut in combining the powers, twisted by the demons riding their backs, they received purple beams of power… If only they had waited till their mid 70’s and picked up FrostFire bolt.

Sure it isn’t purple, but it’s the pure Result of pure magical research. Sure it looks like a cough lolly, cooling blue on the outside, curing red on the inside. Sure it doesn’t match so well with your purple robes, if you are into that fashion sort of thing.

But it’s pure!

I think the big this is us Mages envy Locks (lots of posts about envy lately…).

At one point we envied their raid spots.

We have always envied their pets.

Sometimes we want to be a little less Gandalf and a little more Sauron.

1) Drinks. Yep, back in Vanilla WoW, I truly hated having to buy huge amounts of drinks from the vendors.
Then when BC came out I could get those cool Frond thingies from Underbog (or wherever) that meant I could replace Health and Mana at the same time! You only got 10 of them a day, but they were soo useful.
Now I just throw my fishing line into the nearest bit of water, and look – unlimited food that provides huge amounts of mana/hp.
I don’t need mages any more to satisfy that particular hunger.

2) Ice block. Yep, back in the day, short of Fear, we had no way to stop melee getting into range and giving us a good pasting, whether in PvE or PvP.
Now of course, I have Summoning Circle – watch me vanish! Not only that, I can also use it in raids to teleport from mid-air to the ground without suffering any fall damage. If only I had had that at Archimonde back in BC (evil manaical look).

3) Sheep – how I used to envy Mages and their imba Sheep spell. You don’t know how lucky you used to be, compared with having to use a Succy’s sucky Seduce.
Of course these days, no one knows what cc is anymore. I don’t think I have used Seduce once, since Wrath came out.
Hurray!

Reasons why Mages should still envy Warlocks (only a short list, don’t want you running to Blizzard with a QQ list now!)

1) Pets. We still have ’em, and you don’t. They range from the cute Imp to the brazen Succubus; the dim-witted but strong Felguard to the scary mage-biting Felhound, and of course the Infernal and vastly impressive Doomguard!

2) Our gear always looks awesome; yours looks like you had a bad day at the jumble sale. ‘Nuff said.

3) We still offer more to the raid than you (despite your drink table – see (1) above) – Blood Pact, Curse of Elements, Banish, Summoning Cupboard, Soul Stones and Health Stones.

I think the difference between mages and warlocks is best summed up by example.

Mages are Gandalf, naturally.

Warlocks are Emperor Palpatine.

Gandalf fueled his ‘zone’ with righteous FURY to take down the Balrog.

Palpatine fueled his ‘zone’ with pure HATRED as he pwned Luke’s smug azz. (and would have pwn more if his pet hadn’t gotten out of control and thrown him into that conveniently placed chasm.).

The graphics are kinda misleading, too. One thing locks have asked for for a long time is to have their fire spells properly reflect the fel source by burning GREEN instead of that cheery elemental YELLOW that mages use. So it’s understandable that mages would confuse the two. But, totally different sources. Arcane/elemental versus fel/demonic.

That still leaves shadow priests unclassified. My theory is that the SP ‘zone’ is fueled by sheer ennui; “I’m not really evil, all this pain I’m inflicting is actually HEALING the party, y’all!”

Hm, mebbee not.

But maybe as an example we can use Merlin from “Excalibur”. “Anaal nathrach, orth’ bhais’s bethad, do che’l de’nmha!” Hmm.

The thing about locks, though, is that if they are running low on mana, health tap a bit and POOF! You’ve been healed because they thought you were taking damage (you sneaky thieves!) whereas mages go “2, 4, 6, 8! Watch me while I evo–OW!”